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Fertility Yoga

July 21, 2010

It never occurred to you that getting pregnant was going to be so difficult. But many months and several pricey treatments later, you're still not pregnant. It's frustrating. It's disappointing in the extreme. Still, you need to keep hoping and trying.

Good Results

One holistic treatment that seems to be getting good results where nothing else seems to work is fertility yoga. Holistic fertility centers abound today in response to the large number of couples who are waiting longer to become pregnant and then find that their biological clocks may have run down. These centers offer all kinds of alternative therapies including massage, acupuncture, and conception yoga.

Conception yoga is different than the run-of-the-mill variety of yoga. It's much gentler and uses a type of breathing that can bring you to an internal state of relaxation. Fertility yoga has an effect on the muscles used by your reproductive system. Women who give this discipline a try say that they can feel their hips and pelvises opening up as a result of their yoga work.

Very Popular

Conception yoga is very popular right now. As a result of fertility yoga's newfound vogue, you can find a class just about anywhere within the United States. Some of the yoga courses work on specific female factor infertility issues, while other courses are more general and function as a preparatory step for becoming pregnant.

By now, you're thinking the concept of fertility yoga sounds interesting, but the skeptical part of your mind is wondering about proof. Does conception yoga really help women become pregnant?

There may not be a lot of data on fertility yoga and conception rates, but what there is does seem persuasive. Alice Domar, PhD of Harvard Medical School developed a program for women with fertility issues at the Benson-Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine, located at Massachusetts General Hospital. Domar went on to institute her own center, the Domar Center for Mind/Body Health. At the Domar center, women can take a total of 10 sessions offering a variety of relaxation techniques. The women who attend the sessions learn meditation, yoga, and receive acupuncture treatments in addition to many other therapies offered by the center.

In the year 2000, 55% of the infertile patients enrolled in Domar's center had a baby within a year of enrollment. Of the patients in a concurrent control group, only 20% conceived and enjoyed a successful pregnancy outcome.

The success of conception yoga suggests a link between infertility and stress. Yoga seems to reduce the stress that has built up in the body, allowing the relaxation of the reproductive muscles. The mind/body philosophy of fertility yoga is to let go of the idea that we can control conception. Students are taught the phrase, "You can't force the river."

Fertility yoga invites the river to flow through a woman's body. This invitation removes the obstacles in the way of conception. This is not some kind of hokey philosophy, though. Women who take these classes insist they feel the moment when their hips open and realize their bodies are now ready to accept pregnancy.